Friday, August 17, 2012

So I am really pleased to announce that you can now download a significant chunk of that data as RDF triples. Especially in experimental form, providing the whole lot as a download would have bit of a challenge, even just in disk space and bandwidth terms. So which chunk to choose was a question. We could have chosen a random selection, but decided instead to pick the most popular, in terms of holdings, resources in WorldCat – an interesting selection in it’s own right.

To make the cut, a resource had to be held by more than 250 libraries. It turns out that almost 1.2 million fall in to this category, so a sizeable chunk indeed. To get your hands on this data, download the 1Gb gzipped file. It is in RDF n-triples form, so you can take a look at the raw data in the file itself. Better still, download and install a triplestore [such as 4Store], load up the approximately 80 million triples and practice some SPARQL on them.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Last week, we sent out our first action alert using our new advocacy tool, Mobile Commons. This was an exciting first step because it was our first time using mobile technology with our network of strong library advocates.

Mobile Commons allows us to send text message alerts to our mobile list. From there, our advocates can connect directly to their legislators simply by responding to the text. Mobile Commons also enables us to post click-to-call alerts on our webpages. The alert connects advocates, whether they're on our mobile list or not, to their legislator's office simply by entering their phone number on our page and clicking "call."

During the week of July 30, we used a text-to-call alert and a click-to-call alert to voice concerns over the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. Thanks to groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others linking to our page, we were able to generate over 300 calls into the U.S. Senate in support of amendments that protect privacy online. That type of support helped lead to debate on the bill being halted, most likely for the rest of the session.

As we move forward in this legislative year, I highly encourage you to sign up for text alerts. It's as simple as texting "library" to 877877 or signing up online. It's a great way to stay up to date on library issues and to engage in hassle free advocacy.